As you remember, Katie wouldn’t share her blog post with me, so I haven’t been able to show you all the pretty things we saw on our trip south.

Pretty things that were not Katie.

I hope she’s napping so she doesn’t realize I’m blogging. She gets a tad upset when it’s not all about her. But in a way, this is about her, because we stopped a lot on the way South, more than I might have without her.

We drove through some pretty country but often I couldn’t get off the freeway in the places I wanted to take pictures. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, but when I was able to leave the highway and explore a bit of back road I almost always found something good.

I was usually searching for barns, but sometimes I ran across something else. Like an octagon shaped house. I saw the signs for it and we traveled 15 miles out of our way just to check it out. I thought maybe we’d get out of the car and wander the grounds, but there were no trespassing signs everywhere.

Thankfully there was also a marker that told a little bit about the history of the house. I shot two quick photos and got the heck out of there before anyone inside could get upset.

Once we finally made it to the lake there were plenty of pretty things to notice too. Like this pair of bluebirds checking out the purple martin gourds.

The sun was shining our first day here, and Mr. Bluebird’s feathers shone like sapphires.

The local grocery store, here since forever, is gone, but I thought this faded mural on the side of the store was pretty. And nostolgic.

Even tree bark here is pretty!

I guess it’s true that there’s beauty no matter where you go, no matter the season. And if you’re in the South in early spring you can almost always count on something catching your eye.

Sometimes it’s hard to look away.